Friday, 16 November 2012

Some Wintry Cards for the Frosty Festivities!

First up, many thanks to Jennifer for organising this, and for providing a wonderful prize opportunity (details at the bottom of this post) - and for inviting me to take part! I'm excited to see everyone's inspirational takes on this topic, enjoy some interesting and fun posts, and pick up lots of tips and ideas for projects I want to try :) If you just stumbled across the hop here by accident then you might want to pop over to Jennifer to get all the introductory info - but feel free to stay here and read my post first! ;)

So, me? I'm going to show you a couple of cards. I've had an idea for a glittery, wintry card for some time, and a chance encounter with some pretty printed cellophane last week inspired me to think of a variation of the idea and to get on with trying both of them!

Apologies for the lack of beautifully staged photos, by the way - I shall blame my broken foot for that. Obviously if I was fully mobile I would have been able to set up much clearer and more technically brilliant shots ;) I would certainly have been able to make better use of natural light...

Anyway, the first step each time is to create 3 square apertures. A square punch makes this easier! Of course, you'd get a much neater result if you carefully measured the card and marked where you were going to punch. If you're lazy you prefer a more organic look then you can just judge it all by eye. If the borders end up uneven then you can make a feature of that by adding the greeting to the wider border (or around the whole of that particular square) - or you can just shrug and decide it doesn't matter enough ;)

I punched 3 squares because that worked with the size of the card and punch, but obviously you can vary that. Make a feature of just one square, or create a grid using the whole card if you prefer. Just make sure you leave enough cardstock to give strength to the finished card.

Now to fill those apertures with some decoration! For the first card I used this pretty cellophane:

I just added double sided tape to frame the back of each square, then added a strip of cellophane right across all three windows. Here it is after one strip:

Now that's quite pretty in itself, but I really liked how the wrap looked on the roll, where you can glimpse more and more dots through the layers, so I repeated the first step a few times till I was happy with the look:

I stopped at 4 layers in the end. Here it is from the inside:

It actually looks OK, but if it's too messy for you then you can add strips of spare cardstock to hide the edges of the cellophane and the bits of tape that are still visible. It depends really how lazy neat a worker you are!

From the front the card looks like this, but it's actually really pretty closed, too, as you get cute shadows cast by the little dots:

This makes such a lovely snowy card, ideal for Christmas or a winter birthday :) If you can't get cellophane like this another one would also work, just giving a different look; if it's the snowy effect you want to replicate then you could use dabs of white acrylic paint on acetate. Or maybe try blobs of Stickles if you want some sparkle!

Or if LOTS of sparkle is your thing, maybe this second design would suit you better? Start by punching or cutting 3 squares (or however many you want), just as before. This time though, use ordinary (not double-sided) sticky tape to completely line the inside of the card behind the apertures. If you have tape that's wider than the squares this is ideal, but if not then just use a few strips, overlapping them. The important thing is to make sure that the sticky part of the tape is showing through to the front of the card. Oh, and to not accidentally stick the card to your work surface at the same time....! ;)

So now you have some nice sticky windows :) Turn the card over so the sticky side is showing:

Cover them generously with glitter. I've used silver because it looks frosty:

Tip the excess onto a sheet of scrap paper, then turn the card over and press it face down into the pile of glitter to ensure good coverage.

And there you have your pretty, sparkly card :)

The tape will allow a bit of light through so again you get a slightly different look when the card's closed:

If you're concerned about the glitter rubbing off over time then you can seal it with Glossy Accents or a similar clear-drying glue. Personally I'm too lazy I'm not too worried about it; a little tiny bit might come away but it'll last long enough for me to give the card to someone and for them to display it! This design can also be easily adapted by using different colours of glitter or different shaped apertures, such as a small star covered with gold glitter in the corner of a super simple card, for example.

So there you have my frosty idea! You can find plenty of others by visiting the following blogs:

And if you'd like a chance of winning this fabulous prize of over £25-worth of Basic Grey Aspen Frost and Carta Bella Winter Fun goodies, make sure you leave a comment on each of the blogs along the hop, and finish up with a comment at Jennifer's to let her know you've done so. While you're there, be sure to check out her other Frosty Festivities posts (see this one for a hint of what you might find!) The deadline for the giveaway is 10.59pm (GMT) on Monday 19th November, so you have the weekend to enjoy browsing all the lovely ideas :)

Thanks for visiting :) Next up it's Rinda over at Gallo Organico. See you there!

Oh, these both look great! I'm so glad you managed to hobble to your supplies to make them! I love that you added so many of the layers of cellophane to give it extra depth, and the glitter looks very rich and sparkly! I'd like to try both of these ideas!

Very cool, Mel! I love the cellophane (must see if I can pick up a roll of spotty cellophane at the craft fair this weekend...). The layered effect is great - note sure if I'd have thought of that on my own... I like the glitter too. You could also do this with plain cellophane or acetate and stickles. But the "real" glitter does give it a certain richness of texture, that you prob wouldn't get with glitter glues. To stop it shedding everywhere, I suppose you could make a glittery sandwich, with two pieces of cellophane/acetate as the "bread" and the glitter as "filling"! Nice project - love it. I think you did pretty well at the photos, considering the "ankle situation"!

oh now see I've used transparencies in punched windows but never thought to use cellophane. Hmm - I have a huge roll up in the kitchen from wrapping edible treats, wonder if mist dries on it so I can make my own spotty version...

Perhaps not quite now (have people turning up for dinner shortly) but maybe tomorrow. :)

It's easy to tell you are a teacher Mel...you are NOt afraid of glitter!! Love your cards...may try some of these- they are just as I like...not overly complicated...hope that foot is easing up!Alison xx

I am not a lover of glitter....it is like sand, I hate the fact that it gets EVERYWHERE.....but I love the 2nd card so much that I am going to have to just grin and bear it ....and maybe put protective clothes on..! :-p

A lovely idea just letting u know u can get square peel offs too we used to do something similar in the shop & use square peel offs like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120x-Square-Peel-Off-Stickers-Clear-Silver-Border-/110716271783?pt=UK_Crafts_StickersScraps_Decoupage_SM&hash=item19c7343ca7. If the double sided gets too sticky.

...is what I speak. It describes what I actually say (nonsense, mostly) and how I say it (ie my accent, which is a mixture of all sorts - a bit of North of England, a bit of Irish, a bit of South West England, a lot of just me!) The word comes from my name, Mel, and the fact that I'm one-quarter Welsh. But there's not actually any Welsh in my accent. Go figure...